Setting up email automation is easier than most marketers expect. The hard part is usually knowing where to start.
The goal of any marketing effort is to get the right message to the right person at the right time. Personalisation matters here. But as your list grows, giving every subscriber individual attention becomes impossible. That is where automation earns its keep.
With automations, you set up personalised, relevant emails once, and they go out automatically to the right subscribers when the time is right.
What is email automation?
Automated emails work differently from regular broadcast campaigns. With a regular campaign, you build it and send it to your whole database in one go. With automations, you build a workflow that triggers and sends to individuals when they meet certain criteria.
Instead of manually writing and sending a welcome email to every new subscriber, you set it up once. Whenever someone joins your list, the welcome email goes out automatically. Simple.
Why does email automation matter?
Standing out in a crowded inbox comes down to relevance. Generic emails do not cut it anymore. The best way to stay relevant is to personalise your emails based on how subscribers actually interact with you, and that is exactly what automations do.
The results back this up. According to research by MarketingSherpa, automated emails consistently produce some of the highest engagement rates across all email types.
What kinds of email automation can I set up?
Welcome Email Automation
A welcome email (or series) is ideal for onboarding new subscribers. Thank them for signing up, offer a discount or incentive, and make contact while your brand is fresh in their mind.
Date-based Email Automation
Using specific dates, you can send customised reminders ahead of membership renewals, upcoming events, or any other date that matters to your customer. Set it once and let it run.
Anniversary-based Email Automation
Reach out to customers on their birthday or the anniversary of a key event. Just make sure the content feels personal. A generic "Happy Birthday" with a logo is not much better than nothing.
Content Update Automation
Every time you publish a blog post or site update, you can push an email automatically, or batch your updates and send a digest daily, weekly, or monthly. The choice is yours.
How should I plan my email automation?
Setting up automations in TouchBasePro is straightforward, but it pays to plan before you build your first workflow.
Here is how to set up email automation in four steps:
Step 1: Plan your strategy
Before you build anything, be clear on what you want the automation to do. Are you rewarding customers, educating them, pushing them through a sales cycle, or something else?
A few questions worth answering upfront:
- What outcome do you want from these emails?
- Are you sending one email or a series? If a series, how often?
Once you have answered these, sketch out the flow of emails you plan to send. You can always add more later, but starting simple is almost always the right call.
Step 2: Get the right data
Once you know what you are sending and why, make sure you are collecting the subscriber data you need to support it. If you plan to use birthdays or specific interests, capture those details at sign-up.
TouchBasePro offers five integration types to bring in new subscribers, and you can set up custom fields on your database to capture any extra information you need.
Step 3: Set up your journey
With your strategy set and your data in order, you are ready to build. Log in to your account (or sign up for free if you do not have one yet) and go to the Automations tab. The visual journey designer walks you through the process step by step. You can use a prebuilt template, design your own in the drag-and-drop editor, or import an existing template.
Step 4: Track your results
Do not set automations running and forget about them. Check your reports regularly. If you see open rates or click-through rates dropping, that is your cue to revisit the content or adjust the send frequency. Small tweaks often make a big difference.
Getting your message across
Email automation is one of the more practical tools available to marketers who need to stay relevant at scale. Build stronger subscriber relationships, drive more conversions, and keep your messaging consistent, without manually sending every email yourself.
If you need help setting up your first automation, email our team at solutions@touchbasepro.com. We are happy to help.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between an automated email and a regular email campaign?
- A regular campaign goes to your whole database at once, when you choose to send it. An automated email is triggered by a specific action or date, like a subscriber joining your list or a birthday arriving, and sends to individuals automatically, without you having to do anything each time.
- What data do I need before setting up email automations?
- It depends on the automation type. A welcome series only needs an email address. Date-based or anniversary automations need fields like birthdate or sign-up date. Capture any custom data you need at the point of sign-up using custom fields in TouchBasePro.
- How do I know if my email automation is working?
- Check your open rates and click-through rates in the TouchBasePro reports section regularly. A consistent drop in either metric usually means the content needs refreshing or the send frequency is off.
- Can I set up more than one automated email in a sequence?
- Yes. TouchBasePro's visual journey designer lets you build multi-step sequences. You control how many emails go out and how much time passes between each one.